¹ And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. And he distributed the children to Leah, and to Rachel, and to the two maidservants:

² and he put the maidservants and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindmost.

³ And he passed on before them, and bowed to the earth seven times, until he came near to his brother.

⁴ And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they wept.

⁵ And he lifted up his eyes and saw the women and the children, and said, Who are these with thee? And he said, The children that God has graciously given thy servant.

⁶ And the maidservants drew near, they and their children, and they bowed.

⁷ And Leah also, with her children, drew near, and they bowed. And lastly Joseph drew near, and Rachel, and they bowed.

⁸ And he said, What [meanest] thou by all the drove which I met? And he said, To find favour in the eyes of my lord.

⁹ And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; let what thou hast be thine.

¹⁰ And Jacob said, No, I pray thee; if now I have found favour in thine eyes, then receive my gift from my hand; for therefore have I seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou hast received me with pleasure.

¹¹ Take, I pray thee, my blessing which has been brought to thee; because God has been gracious to me, and because I have everything. And he urged him, and he took [it].

¹² And he said, Let us take our journey, and go on, and I will go before thee.

¹³ And he said to him, My lord knows that the children are tender, and the suckling sheep and kine are with me; and if they should overdrive them only one day, all the flock would die.

¹⁴ Let my lord, I pray thee, pass on before his servant, and I will drive on at my ease according to the pace of the cattle that is before me, and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord, to Seir.

¹⁵ And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee [some] of the people that are with me. And he said, What need? Let me find favour in the eyes of my lord.

¹⁶ And Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.

¹⁷ And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house, and for his cattle he made booths. Therefore the name of the place was called Succoth.

¹⁸ And Jacob came safely [to the] city Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan-Aram; and he encamped before the city.

¹⁹ And he bought the portion of the field where he had spread his tent, of the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred kesitahs.

²⁰ And there he set up an altar, and called it El-Elohe-Israel.

⁹ And Joseph said to his father, They are my sons, whom God has given me here. And he said, Bring them, I pray thee, to me, that I may bless them.

¹ A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi as his wife.

² The woman conceived, and bore a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months.

³ When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank.

⁴ His sister stood far off, to see what would be done to him.

⁵ Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe at the river. Her maidens walked along by the riverside. She saw the basket among the reeds, and sent her handmaid to get it.

⁶ She opened it, and saw the child, and behold, the baby cried. She had compassion on him, and said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children."

⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Should I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you?"

⁸ Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Go." The maiden went and called the child's mother.

⁹ Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child away, and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages." The woman took the child, and nursed it.

¹⁰ The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, and said, "Because I drew him out of the water."

¹¹ It happened in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brothers, and looked at their burdens. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers.

¹² He looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no one, he killed the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

¹³ He went out the second day, and behold, two men of the Hebrews were fighting with each other. He said to him who did the wrong, "Why do you strike your fellow?"

¹⁴ He said, "Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you plan to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian?" Moses was afraid, and said, "Surely this thing is known."

¹⁵ Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and lived in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

¹⁶ Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.

¹⁷ The shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.

¹⁸ When they came to Reuel, their father, he said, "How is it that you have returned so early today?"

¹⁹ They said, "An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and moreover he drew water for us, and watered the flock."

²⁰ He said to his daughters, "Where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread."

²¹ Moses was content to dwell with the man. He gave Moses Zipporah, his daughter.

²² She bore a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, "I have lived as a foreigner in a foreign land."

²³ It happened in the course of those many days, that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.

²⁴ God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

²⁵ God saw the children of Israel, and God was concerned about them.